


The patron saint of the questions you already know the answer to

by playingbloodyknuckles



Category: Diary of a Future President (TV)
Genre: M/M, a little all over the place but made with love, but self-discovery is great kids!, featuring google the patron saint of questioning your sexuality, well this is more about bobby x self-discovery than cartero
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:53:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23378671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/playingbloodyknuckles/pseuds/playingbloodyknuckles
Summary: Bobby Cañero-Reed is not a talkative person. He usually doesn’t actively seek advice either: he doesn’t ask his mom if the acne that he now has on his back is normal, he doesn’t ask his teachers about the homework he doesn’t understand, and he actually never asks Elena to review his literature homework, she just does it on her own.So, when that question that doesn't let him sleep at night keeps popping up into his head, he does what he always does instead of asking someone: He turns to Google.
Relationships: Bobby Cañero-Reed/Liam Carter
Comments: 13
Kudos: 82





	The patron saint of the questions you already know the answer to

**Author's Note:**

> I binge watched doafp in two days and wrote this in two hours. It is a complete mess, yes.

Bobby Cañero-Reed is not a talkative person. He is not like his sister Elena, who can say a thousand words a minute and who Bobby doesn’t understand half the time, and he is also not like his mom, who can spend hours at the phone with Camila ─well, now that he thinks about it, that is probably Camila’s fault─.

He is happy with silence, he doesn’t feel the need to fill it with words. For example, when Sam suddenly appears in their life, he doesn’t need to have lengthy conversations with him, he just nods at him every morning and asks for more of those amazing eggs; or when he has to wait for his mom to pick him up at Camila’s house, he doesn’t find necessary to talk about his day, he is happy to just play videogames with Danielle, the majority of talking being trashtalking each other from time to time. 

He usually doesn’t actively seek advice either. He doesn’t ask his mom if the acne that he now has on his back is normal, he doesn’t ask his teachers about the homework he doesn’t understand, and he actually never asks Elena to review his literature homework, she just does it on her own. It’s honestly scary how well she knows his assignment submission schedule.

So, when that pesky question that doesn't let him sleep at night keeps popping up into his head, he does what he always does instead of asking someone: He turns to Google.

One night, once he is sure that no one is going to barge into his room unannounced he takes his laptop and opens a new tab. He starts writing in the search bar: 

«How to know if─»

No, that’s not it. He erases what he just wrote and breathes deeply, trying to find the correct words.

«What does it mean that─»

He shakes his head and erases it again. Words have never been his forte. He is not like his mom, capable of twisting and turning all the words he uses against him in a second ─having a lawyer mother is actually not that cool when she uses it to her advantage when arguing about the chores he has to do─. And again, he is nothing like Elena, who can find the meaning the author intended in every piece of literature, who understands all the metaphors and allegories and whatever. 

After a few minutes of pondering, google staring back at him, his fingers hovering over the keyboard, he finally writes: «Am I gay?»

He is never been interested on the trivialities of words, on mulling over for too long, he has always been more of a man ─okay, a boy─ of action. So, he just breathes deeply, and presses enter.

He scrolls through the professional, informed-looking links to the renowned organizations’ webpages until he finds the link to a shoddy web that promises him to uncover his sexual preference in 30 seconds or less with their infallible quiz.

Well, that sounds good. 

Bobby presses enter and starts answering the quiz to the best of his ability. Honestly, he doesn’t know that much about Beyoncé to answer some of the questions, and he also doesn’t know which answer he should choose as his drink of choice because he is fourteen years old, but he tries his best. 

His heart starts beating a little quicker, like the fly of a hummingbird, when he is finally done and presses the finish button to see the result before he can think too much about it.

«You are not gay!» the test informs him cheerily with flashing words and a gif of a dog he is not exactly sure how he should interpret. 

Bobby feels his eyes widen slightly “What?”

This isn’t the answer he was waiting for. Well, no. To be honest, he is not sure what he was waiting for. How would he have reacted if the test had told him that he is gay?

He goes back to the beginning of the test and starts again, choosing the answers carefully. 

When he finds himself reading one of the questions for the fourth time is when he realizes that what he is doing is stupid. Choosing carefully for what? What is he trying to do exactly?

Bobby closes his laptop shut and throws it to the other side of his bed. God, this is crazy, he thinks, while running his hand through his hair.

He needs to chill. He needs to stop overthinking everything, let himself just be. What he needs to do is─

He needs to trust the process. Yeah, trust the universe, stop thinking about it, give it time, or whatever. 

Sure.

That is what he will do.

He looks askance at his laptop, lying on the other side of the bed. He extends his arm, reaching for the laptop before stopping himself. No, he is not doing this, come on.

Less than a minute later, he is back on the search engine:

«How to know if you like your friend»

He skims through a few of the pages google shows him, but all the advice is bullshit. There is nothing that can help him distinguish if what he feels for Liam ─the stuff he feels─ is normal between friends or if it means something more. 

After reading through the entire fifth webpage is when he realizes why none of the advice applies to his situation. 

Everything is about a boy and a girl. 

He opens google again. His fingers hover over the keyboard, hesitant. He doesn’t even know how to word his question.

«How do you know if you like your guy best friend and you are guy»

Again, not a single website is useful. The advice is too general, and everything he reads is mostly reassurance about his sexuality, and websites assuring him again and again that falling for a best friend is the most common way to discover your sexuality.

Great. Now, in top of everything, turns out he is a cliché. 

He closes the tab and looks to the ceiling, pushing his tongue against the roof of his mouth. Once he is alone in his room, when the silence is as loud as it is right now, it’s easier to admit that maybe, possibly, he likes Liam, no matter what quizzes and advice websites say. 

But it’s still complicated, a complete murky mess in his brain. What if he is wrong? He doesn’t know how liking someone should feel. He wonders if the fact that he never felt the way he feels with Liam when he was with Monyca means something. He also wonders if the way he feels about Liam is the way Danielle felt when he met Camila. What he is sure about, though, is that he definitely doesn’t feel about Liam like Elena feels about that kid she likes, Joey Feldstein or whatever his name is.

Suddenly, his phone vibrates at his side and when Bobby grabs it, he nearly drops it back when he sees it’s Liam facetiming him.

"Hey" Liam says on his screen, once Bobby manages to stop freaking out and actually answer the call.

Bobby swallows awkwardly “Hey, what’s up?”

"Dude, I've been thinking about something” Liam says and Bobby’s heart stops. Flat out stops. He is not sure how long someone can stay alive without a heartbeat, but he is going to discover it now.

“I’m not sure that sweet potatoes fit with the trifecta" Liam says finally. Bobby’s heart slowly restarts again.

"Oh” he chuckles, too nervous to do something else. “Yeah. Too sweet between the salty"

"Oh my God, yeah” Liam laughs, and Bobby fixes his gaze on the poster on his wall, too worried about his eyes being too honest if he keeps looking at Liam “I have been meaning to tell you"

"You can tell me everything” Bobby says and immediately after that, he freezes. If he was trying not to be too obvious, well, he has already messed up.

However, Liam just smiles at him, oblivious to everything in Bobby’s head, his eyes crinkling slightly. 

"You too, man”

Because, even if he doesn’t wax poetic about Liam's eyes like Elena does with Joey's, Bobby knows he feels something special with Liam, something he had never felt before, something that makes his stomach flutter and his mind go into overdrive.

And for someone who uses the word so much, Bobby Cañero-Reed is not chill at all. He panics easily, he overthinks some things and underthink others, and sometimes he feels a weird anger he doesn’t know how to control bubble inside him.

But Liam ─with his easy smile and his reassuring voice─ calms him down, makes everything go quiet inside him, in a way nothing and no one else can. 

“Oh, by the way,” Liam says, eyes shining with a smile “I’ve finally finished level ten of Triton "

Bobby feels his stomach do a somersault when Liam smiles at him that way ─playful and lightly, light-hearted and nerve-wracking at the same time─.

“Really? How did you do it?” Bobby asks, suddenly sitting upright on his bed.

Liam laughs, and Bobby’s stomach strikes again, a fluttering inside him he had never felt before. He is still not sure if that has something to do with the stuff he feels, if that means he likes likes Liam.

Because, again, he is definitely not feeling all the emotions that Elena puts so eloquently into words when he talks about that kid in his class she likes so much. Unlike Elena, Bobby has no fancy words to describe Liam’s eyes ─they are dark brown, that’s all─, and he is not even sure what the clammy hands and stuttering every time Liam is a little bit too close mean, he can’t find the words to describe the emotions he feels, all the fluttery feelings inside him.

But he is already established that he is not Elena, and Liam, thank God, is not Joey Feldstein.

So, he is just going to carry on. As long as Liam is at his side ─playing tennis, eating too much of the trifecta of fries, planning pranks and just messing around─, he doesn’t care how long it takes to find the correct words, to completely understand what he is feeling.

It's a whole process anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like I’ve talked too much about Joey Feldstein in a fic that has nothing to do with him, but anyway, thank you for reading! You can find me at @kippenscore in tumblr!


End file.
